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Why Europe Is Warning of Pax Americana's End

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Re: Why Europe Is Warning of Pax Americana's End

#121

Post by runeks »

wobbleblob wrote: post #61

After the round of elections in France and Netherlands this spring, and Germany this summer, Europe may or may not start disintegrating, depending on the outcome. Ms. le Pen may not win this time, but she will one day. A correctly timed scandal or major terrorist attack in the second round may sink her opponent. Moscow, London and Washington are hard at work with her, to make this happen. When she, or someone like he…

The EU coming to an end is not the disintegration of Europe. Personally, I would feel no less united with my fellow Europeans if we were to lose a common regulatory body looking over us.

Re: Why Europe Is Warning of Pax Americana's End

#122

Post by jerf »

sveme wrote: post #111
jerf wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to be operating under the belief that the disintegration of the EU started three weeks ago or something? It's been an ongoing saga for years. I mean, Brexit predates Trump, and Brexit itself is the result of years of pressures. I can see why you'd be so confused by the "strategy" if you think Trump is causing it, but he's reacting to it. And my assessment of the situation is the other way around; there's not…

If gp thinks a win by Le Pen or her counterpart in Germany is a given, he does not understand the election system in each respective country. Living in the EU, I actually experience quite the opposite to what jerf is predicting: a reemergence of the EU as a passionate project after Brexit. People have taken the EU for granted for way too long, now it starts to emerge as an issue that is worth fighting for (check e.g.…

I don't necessarily predict the disintegration. I'm pointing out that the idea of blaming Trump for it is temporally silly. It's an ongoing process that didn't start three weeks ago, and even trying to backdate it to Trump's candidacy would A: be insufficient to explain anything anyhow and B: have to explain how Trump somehow knocked over the EU despite hardly saying a word about it during his campaign.

But as for everything being fine and dandy, when you get to the point that you've got sub-polities not only seriously talking about secession, but actually doing it, no, that polity is not in good health.

Yes, that fully applies to the US.

Re: Why Europe Is Warning of Pax Americana's End

#123

Post by rrggrr »

Gustomaximus wrote: post #77

From the article: "It needs to move toward more military integration, which means streamlining procurement. European armies use too many different weapons systems: seventeen main battle tank families compared with just one for the U.S.; 20 types of fighter planes compared with just six; and 13 kinds of air-to-air missiles compared with three." While I dont doubt there are efficiencies to be had, I feel they fail to r…

> Russia has good reason to be worried about their defense. The western powers have been doing most of the invading lately.

Show me a recent Western intervention that threatens Russia's legitimate security interests. Syria? Perhaps. Aside from that your assertion is unsupported.

Re: Why Europe Is Warning of Pax Americana's End

#124

Post by wsc981 »

quonn wrote: post #94
jerf wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to be operating under the belief that the disintegration of the EU started three weeks ago or something? It's been an ongoing saga for years. I mean, Brexit predates Trump, and Brexit itself is the result of years of pressures. I can see why you'd be so confused by the "strategy" if you think Trump is causing it, but he's reacting to it. And my assessment of the situation is the other way around; there's not…

The UK was never a very convinced member of the EU, so Brexit is not a good example. But more importantly, the EU is not falling apart, it is merely facing a crisis. A pro-EU US administration could help to save it while Trump will likely accelerate it's decline.

The EU will fall apart, it's only a matter of time. The Euro as a currency is not sustainable and the moment a net paying country moves out of the Euro, the EU will disintegrate for sure.

At the moment the Euro is just a mechanism to transfer wealth from the northern countries to the southern countries and to make exports easier for Germany. Greece and Italy would be able to import much less goods from Germany if they had their own weak currencies, so would be bad for German exports, but would allow Greece and Italy to recover their economies by devaluing their currencies which would result in decreasing imports, increasing exports.

In the current situation a country like Greece will never recover and Northern European countries will pay perpetually. The same stuff could happen with Italy, Spain, etc...

Re: Why Europe Is Warning of Pax Americana's End

#125

Post by sveme »

quonn wrote: post #94
jerf wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to be operating under the belief that the disintegration of the EU started three weeks ago or something? It's been an ongoing saga for years. I mean, Brexit predates Trump, and Brexit itself is the result of years of pressures. I can see why you'd be so confused by the "strategy" if you think Trump is causing it, but he's reacting to it. And my assessment of the situation is the other way around; there's not…

The UK was never a very convinced member of the EU, so Brexit is not a good example. But more importantly, the EU is not falling apart, it is merely facing a crisis. A pro-EU US administration could help to save it while Trump will likely accelerate it's decline.

On the contrary, a Trump presidency and the Brexit actually creates the external counterparts that is needed for people to gather around. Adding to that, the US feels like a very alien culture nowadays, reenforcing the feeling of being somewhat more similar to each other in the EU.

Re: Why Europe Is Warning of Pax Americana's End

#126

Post by TorKlingberg »

jerf wrote: post #72
wobbleblob wrote: post #61

After the round of elections in France and Netherlands this spring, and Germany this summer, Europe may or may not start disintegrating, depending on the outcome. Ms. le Pen may not win this time, but she will one day. A correctly timed scandal or major terrorist attack in the second round may sink her opponent. Moscow, London and Washington are hard at work with her, to make this happen. When she, or someone like he…

You seem to be operating under the belief that the disintegration of the EU started three weeks ago or something? It's been an ongoing saga for years. I mean, Brexit predates Trump, and Brexit itself is the result of years of pressures. I can see why you'd be so confused by the "strategy" if you think Trump is causing it, but he's reacting to it. And my assessment of the situation is the other way around; there's not…

People have been saying the Euro will collapse "any day now" since about 2008. Things don't just happen by themselves, and trends do not continue forever. It does seem like Trump and Putin are playing a divide-and-conquer strategy with Europe, but not necessarily coordinated.

Re: Why Europe Is Warning of Pax Americana's End

#127

Post by alkonaut »

bad_user wrote: post #50
TeMPOraL wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The history of my country (Poland) tells me that military alliances are worth shit when someone decides to call the bluff. The Second World War started with France and Britain failing to fulfil their obligations when Hitler invaded Poland. Somehow I don't expect NATO troops to show up if Russian forces cross the Polish-Ukrainian border.

I think the current situation with NATO is different than the alliances of WWII. Lets say that Russia invades Europe. If NATO doesn't respond, then the alliance is null and everybody fights for themselves. Which isn't a good situation to be in, given that countries in Europe don't have the capacity to take on Russia by themselves, I mean given our experience from WWII. We learn from mistakes and history teaches us th…

> Lets say that Russia invades Europe.

Russia can't (and doesn't want to) really "invade Europe". What they can do is effectively bring small parts of the baltics, perhaps a whole baltic state as a maximum, under the russian umbrella, and e.g. replace the government with a russian friendly one, put a military base or two there etc.

They don't have the resources to hold "unfriendly territory" (their economy is bad enough as it is). So what would happen is things that would confuse the international community. Fraudulent elections. Violence in the streets. Politicians and journalists murdered. And then suddenly that state is Russian friendly i.e. "effectively part of Russia".

What happened? Was it war? Was someone invaded? When? Is Article V invokable? Is Article V even written to cope with such a scenario? What if there was a proper democratic turn towards Russia? It's Ukraine all over again.

We can't expect (even with Trump) to see massive use of force just because a few green men are shouting in a square somewhere. Or because an election seems dubious in Riga. But wait long enough, and it's fait accompli. The Russian friendly government installed will reject any offerings of military help, because now you are asking the russians whether they want the russians out of the Baltics!

This is why the only working deterrent is to simply have massive Nato ground forces permanently in the Baltics. When you get Maidan square like things going on, you need OECD and NATO people on the ground already. They won't be admitted after a while. Article V should be explicitly clarified to include e.g. holding elections without a long enough notice, and doing it without OECD and NATO oversight.

Re: Why Europe Is Warning of Pax Americana's End

#128

Post by semi-extrinsic »

fowlerpower wrote: post #2

This is somewhat overblown, there was a lot of talk about this as it became clear Trump was about to be elected. Yes Trump is stirring the pot a bit maybe to play Russia against China. Maybe it's to get Europe to spend a little more on NATO so the US doesn't fund the vast majority of that alliance and he can cut some spending there. Whatever the mind set is, not much has changed. The US and all of its allies are stil…

> [if] any US base or military vehicles, etc...

This is precisely why the US stations so many troops in Eastern Europe, South Korea, Japan etc. It's to act as a multiplier on the deterrence value of US alliance with said country. If Russia were to invade just Estonia, with only Estonians killed, it's harder for the US internally to justify military aid, as opposed to if hundreds of US troops are killed.

Re: Why Europe Is Warning of Pax Americana's End

#129

Post by quonn »

jerf wrote: post #113
quonn wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The UK was never a very convinced member of the EU, so Brexit is not a good example. But more importantly, the EU is not falling apart, it is merely facing a crisis. A pro-EU US administration could help to save it while Trump will likely accelerate it's decline.

If the EU, designed to be the counterbalance to the United States, is so delicate that it lives or dies based on the decisions of one man that doesn't even live there, it is falling apart. There's no way around this; if it's gotten to that point of illness it has already proved itself extraordinarily weak. Blaming Trump for pushing it over the edge is just a politically-convenient privileging of the numerous other fo…

> designed to be the counterbalance to the United States

That would be news to me. The EU has never claimed it is a counter-balance to the United States. Some people argue for a stronger, independent EU, but this is surely not the primary purpose of it.

Re: Why Europe Is Warning of Pax Americana's End

#130

Post by DarkKomunalec »

bad_user wrote: post #88
jerf wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to be operating under the belief that the disintegration of the EU started three weeks ago or something? It's been an ongoing saga for years. I mean, Brexit predates Trump, and Brexit itself is the result of years of pressures. I can see why you'd be so confused by the "strategy" if you think Trump is causing it, but he's reacting to it. And my assessment of the situation is the other way around; there's not…

The Brexit campaign was fueled by lies. The real issue is a trend of anti-intellectualism and xenophobia, which I fear we've seen before, triggered by the great depression and a precursor to WWII. It's as if, whenever a financial crisis happens, people go dumb.

Xenophobia, or rational self-interest? How is the common worker better-off by allowing immigration? The only advantage I can think of is having the option of abandoning their country to seek better fortunes elsewhere (assuming immigration is a two-way street). What about the great majority who wish to stay in their own countries?
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